El Nino and Southern California

The unusual amount of stormy weather we've been having is being caused by a condition called El Nino. El Nino is caused by a change in ocean currents. Warm ocean water is moving further north than usual. This has impacts on weather, and impacts on plants and animals.

NOAA, The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration defines El Nino this way, "El Niño is a disruption of the ocean-atmosphere system in the Tropical Pacific having important consequences for weather and climate around the globe."

NOAA predicts this El Nino will extend into the Spring in the US. That means we may see more storms which is great for native plants and we will probably have a good wildflower season in our deserts.
Primrose, Baja California

However, if El Nino persists, and warmer ocean temperatures stay with us through the spring and summer, there could be serious consequences for endangered wildlife.
The brown pelican was just removed from the endangered species list. The population has recovered, but pelicans in Washington State and Oregon are starving right now because the storms keep them from feeding, and their food is moving deeper into the oceans to escape the warmer water temperatures.

The California least tern is an endangered species that nests at Bolsa Chica, and beaches in Southern California. It feeds small fish such as anchovies to its chicks. In El Nino years fewer eggs are laid because the tern's food moves deeper, or north to cooler waters.

El Nino also affects the wildlife off the coast of Ecuador along the Galapagos Islands. During the 97-98 El Nino large numbers of Galapagos penguins died as did the marine iguanas. The marine iguanas eat algae and when the water warms, the algae dies.

Marine iguanas feed on algae, and during times of food shortages can actually re-absorb their own bones to stay alive.

Bio 120 review for first exam

Here are some review questions for you. Some may be similar to the daily review questions, but all will help you while you prepare for the exam.

1. A cell must maintain an imbalance of sodium ions on either side of the membrane for it to function. What process would it most likely use of the ones we discussed in class?
2. How are polar and non polar covalent bonds different?
3. What is a hydrogen bond, and why are these bonds important to life?
4. Oxygen has 8 electrons, with 6 in the outermost energy leve. Will this atom react?
5. How are ions formed?
6. A solution with a pH of 5 is how many times more acidic than a solution with a pH of 7?
7. What determines if an atom with react with another?
8. A plant cell in a hypertonic solution will under go _____________
9. An animal cell in a hypotonic solution may undergo _____________
10. A Paramecium can survive in fresh water without bursting. Why?
11. How are the mitochondria and chloroplasts similar?
12. Why do we think the mitochondria was once an independent organism?
13. Describe the plasma membrane. Include how a lipid membrane functions in a watery environment.
14. What role do the proteins in the plasma membrane play?
15. How is active transport different from diffusion and osmosis, and faciliated diffusion?
16. How is dialysis different from osmosis?
17. What affect would a hypertonic solution have on a cell?
18.How is a hypothesis different from a theory?
19.What are five characteristics of living things?
20.How are prokaryotic cells different from eukaryotics cells?
21.What can cyanobacteria do that the bacteria living in your mouth do not do?
22.How are archeae different from the bacteria living on your skin?
23.Describe briefly what organelles would be involved in making a protein and exporting it from the cell.
24.Give an example of two cell organelles working together to accomplish a task.
25.What organelle is found on the ER?
26.What is the function of lysosomes?
27.Where is the nucleolus, and what is its function?
28.What are the functions of the Golgi bodies?

Chapter 3
1. What are the building blocks of carbohydrates?
2. What is the difference between a saturated and unsaturated fatty acid?
3. Why is the shape of an enzyme important to the function of the enzyme?
4. At what level of complexity do proteins usually become functional?
5. What makes up a nucleotide?
6. What bond forms between amino acids as they react to form proteins?
7. How is the function of carbohydrates different in plants and animals?
8. Which of the macromolecules we discussed stores energy in the most efficient way?
9. What is the most common steroid in the body?

Just a few more questions for Botany

While there are many edible plants, humans consume only a few. What are the three most common plants in the diet, and where does each come from?

What characterizes a plant?

Between 1952 and 1992, twenty percent of all tropical and semi-tropical plants species became extinct. Why should this concern us?

What is photosynthesis?

What is a primary producer?

What elements should be part of a valid experimental design?

Botany Review Questions

Here are a host of review questions for you to prepare for the first exam
1. What are the building blocks of carbohydrates?
2. What is the difference between a saturated and unsaturated fatty acid?
3. Why is the shape of an enzyme important to the function of the enzyme?
4. What are the major functions of carbohydrates in plant cells?
5. Which of the macromolecules we discussed stores energy in the most efficient way?
6. What are the building blocks or subunits of proteins?
7. What kind of fatty acids are usually made in plant cells?

Here's some more questions for you to answer !

1. How are polar and non polar covalent bonds different?
2. What is a hydrogen bond, and why are these bonds important to life?
3. Oxygen has 8 electrons, with 6 in the outermost energy leve. Will this atom react?
4. How are ions formed?
5. A solution with a pH of 5 is how many times more acidic than a solution with a pH of 7?
6. What determines if an atom with react with another?

Plant Cells, and how substances get into and out of cells
1. How are the mitochondria and chloroplasts similar?
2. Why do we think the mitochondria and chloroplasts were once independent organisms?
3. Describe the plasma membrane. Include how a lipid membrane functions in a watery environment.
4. What role do the proteins in the plasma membrane play?
5. How is dialysis different from osmosis?
6. What affect would a 10% salt solution have on a plant cell?
7. Describe how a protein would get out of a plant cell.
8. What are the channels from one cell to another called?
9. How do plants use the central water vacuole?
10. are prokaryotic cells different from eukaryotics cells?
11.What can cyanobacteria do that the bacteria living in your mouth do not do?
12.What organelle is found on the ER?
13.Where is the nucleolus?
14What are the functions of the Golgi bodies?

A photosynthetic animal?

We have been discussing in class differences between plant and animal cells, and that one important difference between the two is that animals do not have chloroplasts. Well, that's true of most animals anyhow.

This beautiful green leafy organism is actually a sea slug. The sea slug Elysia chlorotica consumes chloroplasts when it eats the algae Vaucheria litorea. The slug feeds on the algae, but the chloroplasts are retained in the cells of the gut. The gut in this sea slug is highly branched and the chloroplasts give it the green color. The chloroplasts in the tissue of the animal's gut continue to function in the animals without an algal cell being present. The slug lives about 10 months and can survive off the food made by the chloroplasts.

The green color also provides great camouflage. While the animal has to eat an algae to get the chloroplasts, it is intriguing that the chloroplasts can continue to function without any algal cells present as genes in the nucleus of the algae are needed for photosynthesis to occur. So where are the genes to support photosynthesis? In the nucleus of the sea slug cells! The slug gets the genes from the algae, it does not have them until the animal feeds on the algae.

Interested in looking into this gene transfer further? Click here to read a paper by Mary E. Rumpho et al. on horizontal gene transfer between the algae and the slug.

Yellowstone Animals in Winter

Winter is a very hard time for the herbivores of Yellowstone. The grasses the grazing animals depend upon are dry, dormant and less nutritious than during the rest of the year. The other problem is that they may be buried under many inches, if not feet, of snow. So food is less available, and the weather is very cold,requiring the animals that stay active in the winter to turn their fat reserves into heat to stay warm.




This bison calf has a snowy nose because it has been pushing snow out of the way to find food. Bison do migrate to lower elevations in the winter, and also leave the park. This causes problems for them as they are hunted, and rounded up and often sent to slaughter since local ranchers are concerned they may transmit a disease called brucellosis to cattle. The irony of the situation is that the cattle gave the disease to the bison in the first place.

Bison, however, are well adapted for the cold Yellowstone winters. During the winter their coat of coarse hair can be as much as two inches thick. This provides excellent insulation against the cold.

The snow does not accumulate in such deep layers around the hot springs and other thermal features so the bison there do not have to move as much snow around as the ones who winter well away from the hot springs. There are dangers, however, of life around the hot springs. Bison are huge, heavy animals. They can weigh 2,000 pounds and sometimes as they walk around the thermal features they break through the thin crust of soil and fall into the hot springs and die.



I photographed this bighorn sheep ram in one of the lower elevation areas of the park. Migration to lower elevations where there is less snow is a solution to the problem of winter adopted by many of the herbivores in the park.



I was very surprised to see this squirrel active early in January. Most of the squirrels hibernate during the winter, but this one was not at all sleepy it seems. It scampered across the trail in front of me, ran up into this tree, paused for a few seconds and then was on to another tree.

These cow elk form large herds with their calves and younger elk. Here they are watching the landscape from a high point to better detect their main predator, wolves.


As winter takes its toll on elk, bison, deer and other animals in Yellowstone animals such as this coyote will benefit from feeding on the carcasses of winter killed animals. They also feed on mice and voles, animals that stay active under an insulating blanket of snow.

I was surprised by the number of birds I saw during my winter trip. Many of the ducks, and this beautiful trumpeter swan, forage in the Firehole River. Water flowing from geysers, and hot springs into the river keeps it flowing year round which provides habitat for a host of birds.